A Covey of Cottages

 

Welcome to my little village.  Of course its a village where the sun always shines (unless you get tired of that and want a little rain or a little snow) -- always the weather that you want.

Its quiet here, no vehicles in sight.  No loud music, although you might occasionally hear, on a summer night, a concert in the park.

Everyone knows everyone else and miracle of miracles everyone likes everyone else *smile*.

Welcome to my little village - which might grow on occasion since I have had such a joyful time creating these.

"The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned." - Maya Angelou

An Old Friend

When I am at a loss for words -- or even ideas I turn to this beautiful old book: "Abbott's Ready Reference Illustrated Self-Pronouncing Dictionary".  I found this lovely at an antique store quite a long time ago.  Although it had had a lot of use and was partially falling apart I decided to bring it home with me. 

In these days when questions are answered and pictures are searched on-line it is a step back into quieter times to open these pages (trying to protect those that have finally come popping out of the binding).   The pages have darkened to a beautiful tea-stained color which for me only enhances its beauty.

While paging through this time I found flowers that I had long ago pressed into the pages.  Still beautifully colored they lay on the pages where there is an illustraton of other flowers. As I paged further I found some leaves and other flowers sheltered within these pages.

Some illustrations have made their way, copied onto silk, into my earlier book art.  Others sit there waiting for their time.  Don't you love these pictures of shoes and boots?  I do love using words in my artwork -- perhaps it time to revisit this precious book once again and see what treasures I might find.

"I was reading the dictionary.  I thought it was a poem about everything."  - Steven Wright

Reflections

Not long ago I decided to make a series of beaded pictures whereby I created a beaded piece, mounted it on fabric and framed it.  Here are some thoughts I had as I created these two first pieces.

"Shadow Play" -- a piece that reflects the light and dark, the shadows and glimmer that appear each day.  Sliding into the colors in this piece I let the beads speak for themselves and they seemed to know what they were doing, where they should go.  This piece was stitched 'on the flat' which was a joy to me after completing "RSVP", the hand sculpture.  Beading 'on the flat' allows so much more latitude as to the various stitches that can be used and where the beads go.  I love a piece where I can let the beads flow - as if you come upon a form and shape in nature and it takes on a life of its own.

"On Gossamer Wings" -- this piece was a 'natural'.  I had found the dragonfly button and just had to use it.  As I beaded this piece it was late summer, a perfect time to be using these colors and this theme.  I was able to allow the summer light to creep into the work by using some beads that sparkled - much like the sun on a small pond.  As I've been in a 'learning' mode this past year I hadn't done much about adding bits and bobs on top of the beads but this time I found a stick which had some green lichen on it to attach on top of the beads.  I immediately fell in love with this idea and I know I'll try to layer more in the future. 

I know that a 'series' is not made up of just two pieces so there will be more (and more and more) of these to come -- aren't the opportunities, the inspiration and the creative freedom of encrusted beading just the most wonderful experience?

“Make visible what without you might perhaps never have been seen.” Robert Bresson